Turning first to the chemical and microbiological fields, biologists and chemists have long sought techniques for separating substances, molecule by molecule, as for determination of which type of molecule(s) remain after various test reactions. This is not easily possible on a bulk scale, because some leakage and contamination between species is inevitable. Molecular dimensions are also on the order of nanometers; so, despite the popular image of Micro Electro Mechanical systems (MEMs), "tweezers" are not available to operate on a "large mixed bucket of molecules".
There are currently no known methods for creating a molecular level slit to act as a precise gate or door, let alone a controllable gate, that only permits desired size molecules to pass through; the only methods available being conventional filter technology, where large amounts of molecules must be presented to interleaved elements (i.e., many layers of extremely fine filter cloth). Unfortunately, this filtering bulk process requires the use and loss of a large quantity of the sample to be processed and, at that, conventional filters enable only one molecule to be sorted, and with large amounts of material lost in the filter. When dealing with biological samples, such as DNA, samples tend to have very expensive values, sometimes approaching $750,000/gram.
As a macro analogy, consider the boiling of potatoes, in a pot, and when they are ready, using the cover on the pot to hold back the potatoes while the cooking water is poured out of a slot or crack, between the tilted pot rim and the cover. Sometimes it is poured down the sink, but other times it is collected as for making bread. The key is to hold the cover so it opens only a crack, so the cooking water can pour out, but the potato pieces stay in the pot. So must it be with a mechanism that is to be used to sort molecules in accordance with the invention.
Given the functional requirement to be able to form a mechanical gate to control the size of a substance that can pass through to the nanometer level, and the background design parameters that no MEMs feature can be reliably formed less than 100 nanometers in size, it at first blush may appear that there is no solution along this direction. In accordance with the present invention, however, through the novel use of deflection beam or plate gating design parameters with a surface that can easily be polished to the 1 nanometer level, an entirely new class of controllable gate mechanisms has been achieved--so-called Ultra Surface Finish Effect Mechanisms (USFEMs).
Upon larger scales, the invention provides similar features of novel precision gating for particle separation and the like, as later more fully discussed.